No One Would Cry
by Atlas Arrow
Summary: You never showed fear, and you fought. Right now he couldn’t fight so he just sticking to not showing his terrible fear. He found that it wasn’t helping though. Because, and this was being completely honest with himself, he was going to die. Horrorcentric


The Horror was scared. No, that was an understatement. He was point-blank **terrified**. The fact that he had every reason to feel that way wasn't helping him at all. Internally he realized that he shouldn't be so scared at the danger that was presented in front of him. All his life he had been having brushes with death. Yet, none of them had been as close as this one.

Despite his fear Horror felt like he was doing a pretty good job keeping it all down. That is, not letting The Incinerator know how he was feeling, or even about the fact that the pain was the worst he'd felt in his life. There was nothing at all painless about having the tentacles of a creature that was coming from another dimension through your stomach nailed to the floor. There was blood everywhere.

Still, he was keeping his brave face on. That's right, he was keeping his dignity. Horror knew that was what you were supposed to do. That was what had been hammered into his mind time and time again in the lessons Hargreeves had given them before they went out into the field. Albeit they were about what to do about getting captured, but he figured that they applied there too.

It was a very specific code. Kraken had once said that he thought it might have roots in the military code of conduct. Only thing was, it was a lot harsher. However, it was the only thing that he could turn to. You never showed fear, and you fought. Right now he couldn't fight so he just sticking to not showing his terrible fear. He found that it wasn't helping though.

Because, and this was being completely honest with himself, he was going to die. Generally he was the optimistic one, but he just had to be a realist now. The facts were just too brutally honest. There wasn't any way around it, and his death was completely and totally imminent.

Right now there was just him and Space. Hargreeves had said that that was all they would need for this one. It wasn't like they could get any more. With Kraken and Rumor constantly out it was difficult to get hold of them. As for Séance…Horror couldn't believe the state which his once-closest brother had fallen into over the last few years. His drug abuse was reaching new heights every day.

In any case, it was just the two of them. If there'd been one or two more of them then he might live. However, it was impossible with him pinned to the ground like this, which left that there was just Spaceboy to deal with things. Two things needed to be done and only one could be done. There was no way that Space would be able to shut down the Volcano-trigger **and **rescue him though.

Also, despite the fact that his face was contorted in indecision, Horror knew that Space would stop the Volcano-trigger and let the Incinerator kill him. Hargreeves had told him that the trigger must be stopped at any costs after all. He'd said that even if it cost them their own lives to shut it down. Space would follow the instructions to the letter. It wasn't surprising. That was what Space did. He followed orders and saved the world. He didn't save his siblings.

So that's where he was. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Space's muscles tense. Then he leaped forward and made a dash for the Volcano-trigger. The Incinerator shouted something at him, which Horror couldn't really make out. It was all happening just like he'd thought he would.

To his surprise he found himself with a rather surprising lack of bitterness. Surely he should be bitter about dying in this manner? Yet, he wasn't. He supposed that was just as well. Horror had always been pretty optimistic about the afterlife. He was going to meet his maker in just a few seconds, perhaps a minute. As the Incinerator raised the gun time seemed to slow down though.

Now they say when you die your whole life flashes before your eyes. Horror had never really thought that that was true. Yet, as he was about to die the oddest thing happened. At first he thought he was hallucinating. Scratch that, he probably **was **hallucinating. That was because he was going through his childhood, and at quite a rapid pace.

The images of his childhood weren't actually that bad. That wasn't so surprising. His childhood hadn't been happy, but it had at least been semi-satisfying. Saving the world had been fun then. His extra arms had been very handy. He could hold up Séance's Ouija board and fight off monsters at the same time. Afterwards they all got ice cream. It was like a great big multi-tasking game with delicious rewards.

Being a teenager would always suck though. Try being a teenager trying to gain your father's approval with superpowers though, that was a whole new type of suck. That thought almost made him laugh. At the same time Vanya and Kraken had started some sort of band. To him it sounded like monkeys being tortured. He didn't tell them that though. Of course, at the same time Séance had started to do drugs.

Then there was today, or at least the age he was going through at the moment. The year and the months that he hadn't known had been his last. Horror was in his twenties, and what did he have to show for it? No degree, no real job, no girlfriend, no purpose, no real life to speak of…it hadn't been what he'd wanted.

Not to mention all the fighting that had been going on in the family lately. Ever since Vanya had left Kraken hadn't been quite the same. Séance was a druggie, in so deep that Horror had almost given up on trying to bail him out. As for Rumor…there was a lot he could say about her and what she did behind closed doors. The same thing applied to Space and their father.

It seemed odd really. You spend your whole life trying to please one person and then, seconds before you die, you realize that it probably wasn't worth it. During his life Horror had gotten the image of the naïve one or the nice one. Most of his family thought he was just too stupid to not see what was going on.

That wasn't true. Horror saw what was going on. He'd seen it since the minute they hadn't been rewarded with ice cream the day they'd saved Washington from the Lincoln memorial. Well, maybe he hadn't known that far back. He'd been so very young then after all. At least he'd had an inkling of what was going to happen though.

Unlike his siblings though, he was an optimist. He kept hoping that things would get better. He had always figured he'd had to be. Everyone else was such a pessimist. If **someone **didn't try looking on the bright side of things then the whole house would've been consumed in gloom. He couldn't bear it if something like that had happened when he could've prevented it.

Now though, even he admitted that things were worse then ever. Deep down inside he was almost glad to be getting out. Not at the price of his life though. No, he wanted to live. Yet, at the same time, he was quite resigned. His number had come up and there wasn't really anything he could do about it. Still, it hurt.

Yet, the thought that hurt the most came one second before the bullet splattered his brains. It was, oddly enough, about his funeral. His siblings had always considered him dumb and treated him like he was some sort of annoyance. They probably wouldn't even miss him. If they attended his funeral, which he wasn't sure they all would, there was one thing he knew would happen; no one would cry.

.

.

.

Hargreeves really wouldn't care when Horror died. He'd be surprised, certainly, but care he would not. Well, unless you processed the emotion of almost sarcastic regret. That odd little regret was about how it was a shame that after all those years wasted he just up and died. Not to mention all the money he'd spent on him.

Space would feel very differently though. Real regret flooded him that he'd obeyed those stupid orders instead of at least **trying **to save his brother. From when he stopped the trigger to when he saw his brother's brains over the floor, he felt guilt unlike anything he'd ever felt. Whether he'd show people or not, it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Rumor would have trouble believing it at first. In fact she'd roll her eyes and say that they could stop being morons now. Then she would sit down and think about it. Still, it would be difficult to comprehend. The only thing that would run through her mind was what he said when he was ten;

"Do we get ice-cream now?"

In France the other Hargreeves girl would be shocked as well. It had been nearly a decade since she'd last seen any of her family. Still, Vanya could remember him as being nice. The only nice member of the Umbrella Academy, the only member besides Kraken who had thought she played the violin nicely. He was the only member who didn't betray and backstab the others, and now he'd died. Now that she knew it was possible for the best of them to die like that, she also knew one other thing. She knew then that she could never return home.

Sometime in the distant future .05 would read about Horror's death in the book _Extraordinary_. He would be eleven years old then. Now he knew that, despite where he when he was, he had escaped Hargreeves. He would escape the man who would order the death of a man who he'd raised as a son in favor of a mission. .05 knew then that he'd made the right decision to leave home. His only regret was that he couldn't save the rest.

Kraken would never know the utter truth of the events of Horror's death. However, he would also never stop blaming Hargreeves and Space for what had happened. At the funeral he would formally accuse Hargreeves in front of the press and proceed to break Space's nose. The press would have a field day. He would be quoted, later, as saying;

"You bastards. It's one thing for someone to die in the line of battle. It's another, more disgusting, thing to take someone like Ben and leave them to die!"

As for Séance, he didn't go to the funeral of his favorite brother. During the whole procedure he was in his room, staring at the ceiling and smoking a joint. Yet, it would be a complete moron to say that he hadn't been affected. Five hours after the last of the mourners tip-toed away, Séance would start packing a suitcase. Then he would very calmly order a taxi. His destination; Shinyview Hospital for the Mentally Ill. If Horror had thought his drug problem was bad before, it only got worse.

So, in a way, Horror was right. No one would **cry**.


End file.
